The first person from his own crew to appear was Russell Darby. He had to push his way through the crowd, and when he appeared on the deck, he bent over, trying to catch his breath.
"What the hell is going on out there, Russell?"
Between gasping breaths, Russell said, "They're rabid or something."
"Who is?"
"The people. They're like attacking each other."
Captain Schwenk didn't know what to think. He had heard similar tales from the people on the docks. They stood milling about, watching the entrance that led to the great concrete quays. He saw the fear in their eyes. He knew that something was going on, but he couldn't quite believe the stories that the people had told him. To hear it from one of his own men was something different entirely.
"Tell me, Russell. What did you see?"
Russell told him a tale that he didn't believe—couldn't believe—a tale of sitting in a bar and drinking when some injured woman had stumbled in. One of the men in the bar, drunk himself, had sidled up to the lady, thinking to play the hero. She was a "right fine piece," according to Russell. The lady had not responded to the drunk man's advances. Instead, she bit his nose off. That's when Russell had received the text. He fled from the bar with Jonesy, another man from the ship. The streets were in a riot. Cars were everywhere, honking their horns, trying to escape the city.
He saw more people, injured and violent. He lost track of Jonesy in the panic.
Schwenk still did not believe the man. He must have gotten hit on the noggin. What he described couldn't be happening. It wasn't real. But when the next man showed up with a similar tale, he began to believe.
"Mark, why don't you go lay down. We can handle it up here now."
Mark, pale and sickly, nodded his head and went down below to the crew's quarters. With ten minutes left until his deadline, a huge explosion rocked the city of Vancouver. Flames lit up the night, and the people on the quay sent up a scream of absolute fear. Half his crew was back. He had no idea where the other half was.
"Right, we're out of here," he announced
"What about all the people here?" Russell asked.
"They're not my people. You know the policy."
"Sir, you can't."
"I can, and I will. Now prep the ship."
But Russell didn't move. Captain Schwenk stared the man down. He had never said no to him before, and he didn't need him starting now.
"Captain! Look!" a voice called.
He turned his head, and at the end of the quay, at the part of the dock wide enough for cars and trucks to drive through, he saw a line of people walking through the smoky streets. At first, they began as shadows, slow-moving, unconcerned. The smoke didn't bother them a bit. The people on the dock inched backward, knowing inherently that something wasn't right.
Schwenk turned to see another ship ditch their ramp into the bay. They released a deafening blast of their foghorn, and then they were pushing away from the dock. The first of the newcomers made their way through the smoke, and Captain Gary Schwenk's jaw dropped open.
"No, it can't be."
But it was. The people emerging from the smoke were damaged, some burnt in horrible ways, some bitten, chunks of flesh missing from their arms and legs. One man walked with no left arm, shiny, red blood dripping down his side.
The people below began to flood over the dock. Some fell in the water in their panic. They pushed his men to the side.
"Let 'em aboard," Schwenk called to his men. It was the only humane thing he could do. He didn't want to see what happened when those obviously damaged people fell upon the people begging to get on his ship. The loading was not smooth, and despite the hurry, the shadows closed upon the last people on the ramp, whereupon the screams and cries as they were torn apart made his flesh crawl. The ship, its engines roaring, backed away from the dock at his signal. Some people, still on the ramp, fell into the water, but he didn't care. All he knew was he wanted to get away, and he couldn't save everyone. The world wasn't built like that. Never had been.
Once they were on the open water. The crowd of people watched the city of Vancouver slide by them. They did so in silence, some praying on their knees, others feeling fortunate to still be alive. They watched the fires spread throughout the city. Occasionally, they saw someone on a yacht speed past them. One harried-looking family cruised by on one of the tourist ferries that crawled all over False Creek, the small inlet that divided downtown Vancouver in half.
Schwenk ran his hand through his hair as they skirted the northern coast of the city. He saw horrible things, his binoculars held in his hands. He saw families running, blood running down their arms and legs. He saw a barricade of police officers overrun, their firearms sparking and spitting fire in the night. The weapons seemed to be useless. He watched a woman with her dog wrapped in her arms dive into the water and start swimming toward them as if she could catch the ship. But they were going too fast, and he had no intention of slowing down.
"What the fuck is going on?" he asked. No one had any answer. Some of the people that he saved were using their phones, trying to find information. He walked through the crowd on the deck, and for a moment, he was one of them, terrified and scared out of his mind, watching as the news broke that the dead were coming back to life. Some
